Author Topic: Why We Defend Free Seas  (Read 197 times)

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rangerrebew

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Why We Defend Free Seas
« on: May 02, 2019, 11:24:25 am »
Why We Defend Free Seas
There is more at stake in the South China Sea than most realize.
By Hunter Stires


China’s maritime insurgency in the South China Sea has largely escaped public notice in part because it occurs through innumerable seemingly mundane daily interactions. These effectively conceal the extraordinary stakes being contended for when a Chinese ship bullies a humble Southeast Asian fishing boat. Despite its often-modest outward appearance, what is now transpiring in the South China Sea is, in fact, a conflict of world-historical scale, importance, and consequences.

The United States has held the freedom of the sea to be an essential national interest since its founding. The nation depends on seaborne transportation to access the vast majority of the world’s population and markets and has fought no less than six major wars in which freedom of the sea or its subsidiary concept freedom of navigation has been a declared U.S. aim.1

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2019/may/why-we-defend-free-seas